There are many uses for dried lavender in and around the home. It can be used in home medical remedies, for scenting a room and pot-pouri, for cooking, and for making lavender bags or lavender sachets.

In addition, dried lavender is attractive and decorative, either hanging in bunches or as part of a dried flower arrangement.

You can, of course, buy lavender already dried, but you can do it yourself at home, it's easy and fun to do.

It's an easy plant to grow, and adds a wonderful scent and colour to any garden. It's also a plant bees love, so you might not want to harvest all of it, but instead leave a little for the bees.

It's easy to harvest and dry your own lavender to use in these various projects. This article explains how best to cut and dry lavender, and how to store it for later use.

You should pick your lavender when it is just fully-opened, smelling fragrant, but not at all going over.

This means it has a good concentration of the essential oils and freshness you want to preserve.

If you leave the flowers to bloom for longer, the dried bunches will be less potent.

It's best to harvest lavender in the early evening, after a dry day. This means there is no rain to dry in addition to the flowers themselves, and any dew from the morning has gone, and the new evening dew yet to form.

At the appointed time, get a pair of strong scissors, or a pair of secetuers. Cut your lavender carefully, avoiding crushing the flowers.

You should cut just above the leaves, with a good long stem, to make it easier to hang the stalks for drying.

Don't cut into the woody part of the plant, leave an inch or two at least of the green growth to encourage future flowering.

Don't worry about damaging the plant - pruning like this will encourage the bush to grow even more enthusiastically the following year.

If you have a drying rack for flowers and herbs, by all means use this. Racks are useful, but not essential.

Otherwise, you need some string. There are two ways of tying the lavender stalks for drying:

• The first is to group about half a dozen lavender stalks together, and tie the bunch firmly with string. This is the quicker method.
• The second is to tie the stalks individually, with about 3 inches between them. Each stalk is tied with a knot in the string, so that if the ends of the string are held taut, the stalks hang individually from the string rather than in a bunch.

The first method is quicker and easier, and fine if you live in a place with low humidity. The second is useful if you live in a fairly humid area, so that the flowers will benefit from being separated and dry more quickly than they otherwise would.

You can also use rubber bands to hold the ends of the stalks together.

Once the lavender stalks are on a rack, or tied with string, you need to find a place to put them while they dry.

It's important that the stalks and flowers are in a dark and dry place, so that they do not get mould or rot before they dry properly.

A warm place is better, the ideal drying place is 30 to 32 degrees Celsius for the first 24 hours, and 24 to 28 degrees thereafter. It doesn't have to be exact, don't worry.

Good drying places include attics, lofts, and airing cupboards.

If you don't have a place that's suitably dark, you can cover the bunches with brown paper bags (holes cut along the sides and bottom to allow air to circulate) and dry them in a place with more light.

Check the lavender every few days, as the stalks can shrink a little as they dry, and you may need to tighten the string or rubber bands.

It takes on average a month for the lavender to be thoroughly dried, but hanging longer will certainly do the bunches no harm at all.

Once it is dry, you need to store your dried lavender until you are ready to use it. You can store it either in stalks, as dried, or just the flowers, depending on the intended use.

If you want to keep it on the stalks, for hanginsave g in a room, or for using in a dried flower arrangement, put the whole bunch in a paper bag and store somewhere dry and dark.

If you want to use the flowers for cooking, tea, pot-pouri or lavender bags, gently run your fingers along the stalks to remove the dried flowers. You can then store the flowers in a box or paper bag.